supporting own move

Chris Babcock <cbabcock.TakeThisOut@kolonelpanic.org> writes:


>> >the back view of the game. I don't think that actual game play would
>> >change much as a result of a mere semantic adjustment.
>>
>> Personal observation on my part suggests that having women in a
>> Diplomacy game tends to accentuate BOTH the creative use of knives
>> and the creative use of care bear tactics. I do think personality
>> matters, in fact it IS the only thing in the game really.

>I think you missed what is meant by "semantic". A semantic argument is
>one that is based on the way people use words.

Oh, I know what semantic means, and what you meant. I was actually
challenging the point that it is possible for "gender" to be a merely
semantic point, although I was challenging that only loosely. I think the
question is whether pure semantic adjustments in negotiation are possible,
you perhaps think they are?

>My point didn't have anything to do with the use or misuse of
>personality in the game, but rather in what we call it. Intrigue goes

I have the same interests, and I want to call things differently, so
having us discuss this a bit might be useful.....

>hand in hand with social interaction. If we call Diplomacy a game of
>intrigue then we imply that it is a social game. If we call it a social
>game then we imply that it is a game of intrigue. It's the same game

I certainly 100% agree with that, BUT still it is not a 1-1 if and only if
correspondence.

>either way, but the emphasis we make appears to say something about our
>values. Because of this, we may want to tailor the message to draw
>attention to our values in the hobby community as opposed to the values
>adopted for the duration of an individual game session.

>Chris

And that also is useful. I could be a devious, lying bastard in games
without also being one in the hobby community. In fact, again in my view,
this is why it is IMPORTANT to have a hobby community so people can see
each other outside the games.

Jim-Bob

> Oh, I know what semantic means, and what you meant. I was actually
> challenging the point that it is possible for "gender" to be a merely
> semantic point, although I was challenging that only loosely. I
> think the question is whether pure semantic adjustments in
> negotiation are possible, you perhaps think they are?

OK, I see that now. No, gender is not a semantic point. Making a
semantic adjustment to how the game is presented in certain contexts,
however, may make a difference in how the game is perceived by
potential recruits. While I want to play with people who are trying to
win, I want to associate with people who care about playing environment.

> >My point didn't have anything to do with the use or misuse of
> >personality in the game, but rather in what we call it. Intrigue goes
>
> I have the same interests, and I want to call things differently, so
> having us discuss this a bit might be useful.....

I would dearly love to understand what you just said.

> >hand in hand with social interaction. If we call Diplomacy a game of
> >intrigue then we imply that it is a social game. If we call it a
> >social game then we imply that it is a game of intrigue. It's the
> >same game
>
> I certainly 100% agree with that, BUT still it is not a 1-1 if and
> only if correspondence.

Only on the first impression is it that. I'm interested in creating a
general trend or a social environment that help players to
differentiate between in-game and out-of-game behaviors - what is
acceptable and unacceptable in each context. I believe that you have to
be truly secure in your friendship with someone outside of the game to
stick them the way an opponent should be stuck in-game. Without the
community, we don't create the kinds of games that we really want to
play.

> >either way, but the emphasis we make appears to say something about
> >our values. Because of this, we may want to tailor the message to
> >draw attention to our values in the hobby community as opposed to
> >the values adopted for the duration of an individual game session.
>
> And that also is useful. I could be a devious, lying bastard in
> games without also being one in the hobby community. In fact, again
> in my view, this is why it is IMPORTANT to have a hobby community so
> people can see each other outside the games.

And as someone who normally masters a lot of novice games, I see way
too many promising and aggressive new players fail to differentiate
between in-game and out-of-game ethics. I'd like to implement server
side solutions to keep them out of trouble until they mature, but until
then the only thing that I can do is try to head it off with some good
advice in advance of the temptation so that I don't end up needing to
ban them later.

My big project is a collection of game servers embedded in a community
site. Not Diplomacy as one more feature on a generic community site run
by people who have nothing to do with the hobby, but a community site
optimized for the kinds of social interaction in which gamers engage,
including play.

Chris

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:18:56 -0400
"David E. Cohen" <david_e_cohen RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:

> "Chris Babcock" <cbabcock RemoveThis @kolonelpanic.org> wrote [edited]:
>
> > My big project is a collection of game servers embedded in a
> > community site. Not Diplomacy as one more feature on a generic
> > community site run by people who have nothing to do with the hobby,
> > but a community site optimized for the kinds of social interaction
> > in which gamers engage, including play.
>
> This is an interesting concept, but just what kind of social
> interaction is typical of gamers, other than gaming, which is not
> typical for people as a whole?

For a gamer, games and ratings are an integral part of the information
that should be part of the profile. Also, forums would be organized by
game genre with a forum for out of character or out of game discussions
as opposed to having a number of general forums with games as one
category. Groups would use a different terminology, a club metaphor,
and group membership could be used as a qualification to automatically
limit participation in certain games or in-game alliance structures for
massively multi-player games. The second most important thing is to be
able to use a unified login for both the games and the social activity.

The main purpose of the site would be to keep ownership of the content
generated in the pursuit of the hobby within the hobby. Right now, most
Diplomacy clubs are organized on YahooGroups! We tolerate all kinds of
advertising and abuse of privacy in order to use that service... and
there's always the risk that they will convert to a pay model like
Delphi did. I'm completely unwilling to run ads that are off-topic for
the community or that are any larger or more intrusive than a banner
ad. After all that I've been through trying to keep my existing servers
running there will be a donation mechanism, but the services offered to
donors will not substantially differ from the general offerings.

Chris

"Chris Babcock" <cbabcock DeleteThis @kolonelpanic.org> wrote [edited]:

> My big project is a collection of game servers embedded in a community
> site. Not Diplomacy as one more feature on a generic community site run
> by people who have nothing to do with the hobby, but a community site
> optimized for the kinds of social interaction in which gamers engage,
> including play.

This is an interesting concept, but just what kind of social interaction is
typical of gamers, other than gaming, which is not typical for people as a
whole?

Chris Babcock <cbabcock DeleteThis @kolonelpanic.org> writes:


>> Oh, I know what semantic means, and what you meant. I was actually
>> challenging the point that it is possible for "gender" to be a merely
>> semantic point, although I was challenging that only loosely. I
>> think the question is whether pure semantic adjustments in
>> negotiation are possible, you perhaps think they are?

>OK, I see that now. No, gender is not a semantic point. Making a
>semantic adjustment to how the game is presented in certain contexts,
>however, may make a difference in how the game is perceived by
>potential recruits. While I want to play with people who are trying to
>win, I want to associate with people who care about playing environment.

Ah, and perception in Diplomacy has a sneaky way of becoming reality. The
game is played rather differently in different communities and semantic
issues DO impact that, not gender though.

>> >My point didn't have anything to do with the use or misuse of
>> >personality in the game, but rather in what we call it. Intrigue goes
>>
>> I have the same interests, and I want to call things differently, so
>> having us discuss this a bit might be useful.....

>I would dearly love to understand what you just said.

Um, OK, let's see if I can remember. My view of personality is that from
the earliest of ages (you see it among children as young as one or two) we
develop certain attitudes toward competition in social situations. Some
people behave like bullies, some people behave with shyness, some people
behave assertively, others passively. I use "behave" on purpose since
also from those earliest ages humans learn to "put on" these things. When
viewed in Diplomacy, it is one of many ways to create "levels to the
game"(J-B TM) All of this is part of how to "game" situations. Thus,
since Diplomacy goes to the core of those personality issues, or at a
minimum permits it (some people try to intentionally build level lowering
constraints into the game -- these work from simple things like DMZs to
more complex things like carebear alliances), then playing Diplomacy
challenges one's personality at a comprehensive level.

>> >hand in hand with social interaction. If we call Diplomacy a game of
>> >intrigue then we imply that it is a social game. If we call it a
>> >social game then we imply that it is a game of intrigue. It's the
>> >same game
>>
>> I certainly 100% agree with that, BUT still it is not a 1-1 if and
>> only if correspondence.

>Only on the first impression is it that. I'm interested in creating a
>general trend or a social environment that help players to
>differentiate between in-game and out-of-game behaviors - what is
>acceptable and unacceptable in each context. I believe that you have to
>be truly secure in your friendship with someone outside of the game to
>stick them the way an opponent should be stuck in-game. Without the
>community, we don't create the kinds of games that we really want to
>play.

Again, we completely agree on that. This is why, for people who've played
this game for a very long time, have developed relationships with people
far deeper (in the sense of who you would trust with ANYTHING) in this
game than in most other human interactions.

>> >either way, but the emphasis we make appears to say something about
>> >our values. Because of this, we may want to tailor the message to
>> >draw attention to our values in the hobby community as opposed to
>> >the values adopted for the duration of an individual game session.
>>
>> And that also is useful. I could be a devious, lying bastard in
>> games without also being one in the hobby community. In fact, again
>> in my view, this is why it is IMPORTANT to have a hobby community so
>> people can see each other outside the games.

>And as someone who normally masters a lot of novice games, I see way
>too many promising and aggressive new players fail to differentiate
>between in-game and out-of-game ethics. I'd like to implement server
>side solutions to keep them out of trouble until they mature, but until
>then the only thing that I can do is try to head it off with some good
>advice in advance of the temptation so that I don't end up needing to
>ban them later.

This is right, for sure. I am unsure how best to mediate this. Some
people cannot separate the two and have no business EVER playing
Diplomacy. It also is almost impossible (in anything, but especially in
Diplomacy) to fast-track the experience factor. It simply takes time to
see things. I, for one, can't really identify in any meaningful way with
novices any more, and I know it. The game is too deeply ingrained in my
personality, for better or worse. This makes me one of those people that
can REALLY annoy a new player in ways I certainly don't mean.

>My big project is a collection of game servers embedded in a community
>site. Not Diplomacy as one more feature on a generic community site run
>by people who have nothing to do with the hobby, but a community site
>optimized for the kinds of social interaction in which gamers engage,
>including play.

>Chris

Yeah, Facebook seems to be attempting to be a place where such things can
happen, but as a whole of course also is too much trying to be all things
to too many people. Good luck, really. This is very important.

Jim-Bob

"David E. Cohen" <david_e_cohen DeleteThis @yahoo.com> writes:

>"Chris Babcock" <cbabcock DeleteThis @kolonelpanic.org> wrote [edited]:

>> My big project is a collection of game servers embedded in a community
>> site. Not Diplomacy as one more feature on a generic community site run
>> by people who have nothing to do with the hobby, but a community site
>> optimized for the kinds of social interaction in which gamers engage,
>> including play.

>This is an interesting concept, but just what kind of social interaction is
>typical of gamers, other than gaming, which is not typical for people as a
>whole?

That's a good question, I also had this same question, but passed on
saying it in my longer message.

Jim-Bob

Chris Babcock <cbabcock RemoveThis @kolonelpanic.org> writes:


Hehehe, you are partly describing what we already had and have allowed to
wither, the postal hobby. You are partly describing what we call
"szines". Do you understand what I have long called "szineness"?
Probably not. I'm not sure how to describe it to someone who hasn't
experienced it.... I'm currently quite depressed that my "szineness" is
fading. Go look at my 200th issue of The Abyssinian Prince on the web and
see if you can see what you are getting at.

http://devel.diplom.org/DipPouch/Postal/Zines/TAP/abyss200.html

I think you're just trying to recreate szines for the new century. I
wish I knew how to do this, I hope you can figure it out.....

Jim-Bob

>On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:18:56 -0400
>"David E. Cohen" <david_e_cohen RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:

>> "Chris Babcock" <cbabcock RemoveThis @kolonelpanic.org> wrote [edited]:
>>
>> > My big project is a collection of game servers embedded in a
>> > community site. Not Diplomacy as one more feature on a generic
>> > community site run by people who have nothing to do with the hobby,
>> > but a community site optimized for the kinds of social interaction
>> > in which gamers engage, including play.
>>
>> This is an interesting concept, but just what kind of social
>> interaction is typical of gamers, other than gaming, which is not
>> typical for people as a whole?

>For a gamer, games and ratings are an integral part of the information
>that should be part of the profile. Also, forums would be organized by
>game genre with a forum for out of character or out of game discussions
>as opposed to having a number of general forums with games as one
>category. Groups would use a different terminology, a club metaphor,
>and group membership could be used as a qualification to automatically
>limit participation in certain games or in-game alliance structures for
>massively multi-player games. The second most important thing is to be
>able to use a unified login for both the games and the social activity.

>The main purpose of the site would be to keep ownership of the content
>generated in the pursuit of the hobby within the hobby. Right now, most
>Diplomacy clubs are organized on YahooGroups! We tolerate all kinds of
>advertising and abuse of privacy in order to use that service... and
>there's always the risk that they will convert to a pay model like
>Delphi did. I'm completely unwilling to run ads that are off-topic for
>the community or that are any larger or more intrusive than a banner
>ad. After all that I've been through trying to keep my existing servers
>running there will be a donation mechanism, but the services offered to
>donors will not substantially differ from the general offerings.

>Chris

> I think you're just trying to recreate szines for the new century. I
> wish I knew how to do this, I hope you can figure it out.....

So what does the the "s" in "szine" stand for?

It's amazing how much your szine reprints read like Blogs. The articles
are a little like comfortable, humorous letters to the editor, which
is exactly what I'm looking for... or rather I'm looking to create an
environment that enables that kind of tone.

That being said, I'm specifically interested in implementing something
like the (s)zine/sub(s)zine dynamic - creating electronic niches for
community and sub-community interactions. Mailing lists and forums get
blurred into one feature like the Googlegroups interface to fill the
need of some of the more typical on-line club interactions, but it's
persistent content that forms the backbone of groups. Now, what to call
that content?

Whatever it's called, I have thought up a really clever way of
organizing and integrating it all... or at least most of it. Best of
all, the technology to implement it is maturing at this very moment.
(The third and final alpha of TurboGears 2 is scheduled for release
today and it's anticipated to be stable enough for a production
environment.) I've got my eyes open for open source implementations of
the the standard social networking stuff on this platform, but even if I
have to develop stuff from scratch I'll be working with this as opposed
to Joomla! or something else in PHP because I'm aiming for sustainable
development and so much of the other infrastructure in the hobby is
also in Python - floc.net, DipPouch, Tom's work on the BNC archives.

One feature in particular that I'm sure the judge community will
appreciate - web mail accounts that have known servers in the hobby
already white listed. Never miss a judge email again!

Chris

Chris Babcock <cbabcock.TakeThisOut@kolonelpanic.org> writes:


>> I think you're just trying to recreate szines for the new century. I
>> wish I knew how to do this, I hope you can figure it out.....

>So what does the the "s" in "szine" stand for?

Hehehe, that's not a simple story. It actually is about pronunciation.
Do a google search see what you find, I'd be curious, I'll probably do it
myself too. Basically it is social networking.

>It's amazing how much your szine reprints read like Blogs. The articles
>are a little like comfortable, humorous letters to the editor, which
>is exactly what I'm looking for... or rather I'm looking to create an
>environment that enables that kind of tone.

Of course, most of the great communicators of that period in the hobby
have drifted away from Diplomacy toward blogging. I don't really get into
pure blogging though.

>That being said, I'm specifically interested in implementing something
>like the (s)zine/sub(s)zine dynamic - creating electronic niches for
>community and sub-community interactions. Mailing lists and forums get
>blurred into one feature like the Googlegroups interface to fill the
>need of some of the more typical on-line club interactions, but it's
>persistent content that forms the backbone of groups. Now, what to call
>that content?

Diplomacy.....

>Whatever it's called, I have thought up a really clever way of
>organizing and integrating it all... or at least most of it. Best of
>all, the technology to implement it is maturing at this very moment.
>(The third and final alpha of TurboGears 2 is scheduled for release
>today and it's anticipated to be stable enough for a production
>environment.) I've got my eyes open for open source implementations of
>the the standard social networking stuff on this platform, but even if I
>have to develop stuff from scratch I'll be working with this as opposed
>to Joomla! or something else in PHP because I'm aiming for sustainable
>development and so much of the other infrastructure in the hobby is
>also in Python - floc.net, DipPouch, Tom's work on the BNC archives.

I very much look forward to you implementing this!!!!

>One feature in particular that I'm sure the judge community will
>appreciate - web mail accounts that have known servers in the hobby
>already white listed. Never miss a judge email again!

>Chris

Yeah, I have to admit I use gmail that way, but in so doing I recognize
the tradeoff I make. You're probably one of those guys who doesn't like
that so much.....

Jim-Bob

> >So what does the the "s" in "szine" stand for?
>
> Hehehe, that's not a simple story. It actually is about
> pronunciation. Do a google search see what you find, I'd be curious,
> I'll probably do it myself too. Basically it is social networking.

I looked before asking. S for social makes sense in the religious sense
that it doesn't have to be factual to be true. Most of the szines that
I found in Google were snowboarding and other extreme sports so there
are other plausible etymologies.

> >It's amazing how much your szine reprints read like Blogs. The
> >articles are a little like comfortable, humorous letters to the
> >editor, which is exactly what I'm looking for... or rather I'm
> >looking to create an environment that enables that kind of tone.
>
> Of course, most of the great communicators of that period in the
> hobby have drifted away from Diplomacy toward blogging. I don't
> really get into pure blogging though.

When not interrupted by my education, I write a blog a day at:

http://members.bluegoosenews.com/diplomacy

> >That being said, I'm specifically interested in implementing
> >something like the (s)zine/sub(s)zine dynamic - creating electronic
> >niches for community and sub-community interactions. Mailing lists
> >and forums get blurred into one feature like the Googlegroups
> >interface to fill the need of some of the more typical on-line club
> >interactions, but it's persistent content that forms the backbone of
> >groups. Now, what to call that content?
>
> Diplomacy.....

Zines, Szines, Publications... I'm also talking about content for
MUD-like web games and other "text-based strategy and.or role-playing
games" such as would be the scope of the asciiking.com mission, "ASCII
King exists to provide a community for players of text-based games."
Even when graphical interfaces like mappers are available, Diplomacy is
still "text-based" as opposed to binary because that is how the game is
conceptualized.

> I very much look forward to you implementing this!!!!

I've found the engine - http://ygingras.net/b/tag/gazest

The back-end will use Wiki markup for internal storage. The importance
of this particular engine in terms of storing pages is that it uses a
threaded view instead of a flat chronological view for history that
could also be applied for discussions.

In the MVC programming pattern, any of the standard social networking
applications can be described as a view of a Wiki page set. Mailing
list archives and forums are stored as Wiki discussion pages and
displayed in the more familiar format with one twist - a generated but
editable summary page is stored as the Wiki main page. Blogs are stored
as Wiki pages with comments as discussion. Regardless of how the
content enters the site, it can be viewed as Blog, Wiki, Forum, Feed,
Email or whatever other presentation is enabled on the site.

> >One feature in particular that I'm sure the judge community will
> >appreciate - web mail accounts that have known servers in the hobby
> >already white listed. Never miss a judge email again!
>
> Yeah, I have to admit I use gmail that way, but in so doing I
> recognize the tradeoff I make. You're probably one of those guys who
> doesn't like that so much...

Gmail is problematic because it hides the user's IP Address. It's
important in running an email servers to be able to track usage
patterns. The IP Address is not a perfect way to track individuals, but
it can be used to tell if people supplied reasonably accurate
geographical data and if players from the same region are in the same
game. Different judgekeepers deal with that differently. Some block
gmail address altogether. My policy is at:

http://www.asciiking.com/diplomacy/gmail_policy.html

Another issue is that most judges are vulnerable to a social
engineering DoS attack on web mail sites. When some fool uses the Spam
button instead of resigning from a game and deleting mail, it can
interfere with mail delivery to other users unless the other users have
the judge white listed or the judgekeeper has SPF records published.
The judges that are more likely to have disgruntled users due to strict
policies are less likely to be vulnerable, but it's an issue that could
resurface if judgekeepers don't stay on top of changes in email
practice.

That's closer to what I'm talking about here. Even the judges on
diplom.org will sometimes not be delivered to accounts managed by
certain providers due to a blacklisting problem. If someone misbehaves
on our providers' networks, suddenly everyone on Yahoo and BTI Internet
is not getting mail from the judge. I'm planning to provide email
addresses that will *always* get mail from known servers in the hobby
with a simple way to make new servers known. That means that I can get
really aggressive about spam filtering without interfering with game
mail. Also the filtering profiles on the site will tend to be biased
towards accepting mail that looks like it comes from a game.

Of course game email coming from the same site is nearly instantaneous.
That's one of the blessings and curses about running games on my own
judge. All of my interaction with the judge happens locally, so it is
very responsive. On the other hand, it takes some effort to see how the
system is working for outside users.

Chris

Chris Babcock <cbabcock.DeleteThis@kolonelpanic.org> writes:


>> >So what does the the "s" in "szine" stand for?
>>
>> Hehehe, that's not a simple story. It actually is about
>> pronunciation. Do a google search see what you find, I'd be curious,
>> I'll probably do it myself too. Basically it is social networking.

>I looked before asking. S for social makes sense in the religious sense
>that it doesn't have to be factual to be true. Most of the szines that
>I found in Google were snowboarding and other extreme sports so there
>are other plausible etymologies.

Really, someone else came up with that? No, no, I guess you never found
any of the Diplomacy explanations, it purely was a SPECIFIC diplomacy
group signal about pronunciation of the word. There are two possible
pronunciations of the abbreviation "zine", szine as opposed to zyn.... it
ended up being a group ID.

>> >It's amazing how much your szine reprints read like Blogs. The
>> >articles are a little like comfortable, humorous letters to the
>> >editor, which is exactly what I'm looking for... or rather I'm
>> >looking to create an environment that enables that kind of tone.
>>
>> Of course, most of the great communicators of that period in the
>> hobby have drifted away from Diplomacy toward blogging. I don't
>> really get into pure blogging though.

>When not interrupted by my education, I write a blog a day at:

>http://members.bluegoosenews.com/diplomacy

I'll check it out sometime.

>> >That being said, I'm specifically interested in implementing
>> >something like the (s)zine/sub(s)zine dynamic - creating electronic
>> >niches for community and sub-community interactions. Mailing lists
>> >and forums get blurred into one feature like the Googlegroups
>> >interface to fill the need of some of the more typical on-line club
>> >interactions, but it's persistent content that forms the backbone of
>> >groups. Now, what to call that content?
>>
>> Diplomacy.....

>Zines, Szines, Publications... I'm also talking about content for
>MUD-like web games and other "text-based strategy and.or role-playing
>games" such as would be the scope of the asciiking.com mission, "ASCII
>King exists to provide a community for players of text-based games."
>Even when graphical interfaces like mappers are available, Diplomacy is
>still "text-based" as opposed to binary because that is how the game is
>conceptualized.

Agreed.

>> I very much look forward to you implementing this!!!!

>I've found the engine - http://ygingras.net/b/tag/gazest

>The back-end will use Wiki markup for internal storage. The importance
>of this particular engine in terms of storing pages is that it uses a
>threaded view instead of a flat chronological view for history that
>could also be applied for discussions.

That probably is useful for people trying to follow disparate threads,
like on Music or arts or politics.

>In the MVC programming pattern, any of the standard social networking
>applications can be described as a view of a Wiki page set. Mailing
>list archives and forums are stored as Wiki discussion pages and
>displayed in the more familiar format with one twist - a generated but
>editable summary page is stored as the Wiki main page. Blogs are stored
>as Wiki pages with comments as discussion. Regardless of how the
>content enters the site, it can be viewed as Blog, Wiki, Forum, Feed,
>Email or whatever other presentation is enabled on the site.

Yes, flexibility helps.

>> >One feature in particular that I'm sure the judge community will
>> >appreciate - web mail accounts that have known servers in the hobby
>> >already white listed. Never miss a judge email again!
>>
>> Yeah, I have to admit I use gmail that way, but in so doing I
>> recognize the tradeoff I make. You're probably one of those guys who
>> doesn't like that so much...

>Gmail is problematic because it hides the user's IP Address. It's
>important in running an email servers to be able to track usage
>patterns. The IP Address is not a perfect way to track individuals, but
>it can be used to tell if people supplied reasonably accurate
>geographical data and if players from the same region are in the same
>game. Different judgekeepers deal with that differently. Some block
>gmail address altogether. My policy is at:

>http://www.asciiking.com/diplomacy/gmail_policy.html

Yes, although I really think geography is WAY overstated as a guard
against fraud. It is almost easier to get three friends together in US,
Australia, UK and put in an automatic alliance, rather than create fake
IDs.

>Another issue is that most judges are vulnerable to a social
>engineering DoS attack on web mail sites. When some fool uses the Spam
>button instead of resigning from a game and deleting mail, it can
>interfere with mail delivery to other users unless the other users have
>the judge white listed or the judgekeeper has SPF records published.
>The judges that are more likely to have disgruntled users due to strict
>policies are less likely to be vulnerable, but it's an issue that could
>resurface if judgekeepers don't stay on top of changes in email
>practice.

Ah, yes, I think I understand that. I almost NEVER mess with gmail's spam
button. And almost nothing goes to spam that I want.

>That's closer to what I'm talking about here. Even the judges on
>diplom.org will sometimes not be delivered to accounts managed by
>certain providers due to a blacklisting problem. If someone misbehaves
>on our providers' networks, suddenly everyone on Yahoo and BTI Internet
>is not getting mail from the judge. I'm planning to provide email
>addresses that will *always* get mail from known servers in the hobby
>with a simple way to make new servers known. That means that I can get
>really aggressive about spam filtering without interfering with game
>mail. Also the filtering profiles on the site will tend to be biased
>towards accepting mail that looks like it comes from a game.

The "join the community" aspect seems to be the wave of the future,
although as an old fart I must admit I find it both confusing and
annoying.

>Of course game email coming from the same site is nearly instantaneous.
>That's one of the blessings and curses about running games on my own
>judge. All of my interaction with the judge happens locally, so it is
>very responsive. On the other hand, it takes some effort to see how the
>system is working for outside users.

>Chris

Ah yes, I suppose. And servers seem to be doing things VERY differently
now. I notice this, but can't tell why.

Jim-Bob

> >> >So what does the the "s" in "szine" stand for?
> >>
> >> It actually is about
> >> pronunciation. Do a google search see what you find, I'd be
> >> curious, I'll probably do it myself too. Basically it is social
> >> networking.
>
> >I looked before asking. S for social makes sense in the religious
> >sense that it doesn't have to be factual to be true. Most of the
> >szines that I found in Google were snowboarding and other extreme
> >sports so there are other plausible etymologies.
>
> Really, someone else came up with that? No, no, I guess you never
> found any of the Diplomacy explanations, it purely was a SPECIFIC
> diplomacy group signal about pronunciation of the word. There are
> two possible pronunciations of the abbreviation "zine", szine as
> opposed to zyn.... it ended up being a group ID.

Sometime between then and now, I got that szine might be pronounced
like "scene", which suddenly answered my question, "What to call 'it'?".

> >Even when graphical interfaces like mappers are available,
> >Diplomacy is still "text-based" as opposed to binary because that is
> >how the game is conceptualized.
>
> Agreed.

Wow. I don't usually get that one given to me that easily. When I tell
someone that Diplomacy is text based, I get asked about the map and
have to go through the whole deal of asking people what they are
thinking when they look at the map. Unless someone exclusively plays no
press on a GUI (or plays as-if it was no press) then they still think
"Army Liverpool to Yorkshire" rather than arrow on a map.

> >The back-end will use Wiki markup for internal storage. The
> >importance of this particular engine in terms of storing pages is
> >that it uses a threaded view instead of a flat chronological view
> >for history that could also be applied for discussions.
>
> That probably is useful for people trying to follow disparate
> threads, like on Music or arts or politics.

One of the few real differences between mailing lists and forums is
that mailing lists are more likely to be threaded. The capability of
having a threaded, as opposed to a linear, representation of the
discussion is one of the keys to merging the two presentations.

> Yes, although I really think geography is WAY overstated as a guard
> against fraud. It is almost easier to get three friends together in
> US, Australia, UK and put in an automatic alliance, rather than
> create fake IDs.

That is certainly becoming more and more of an issue. Multis still
break games more than collusion. Orders from multis have to originate
from the same geo-area *and pretend not to do so*, making that a good
resource for prevention.

Collusion can't be detected without either snooping or high-tech
profiling tools. My objectives are currently ordered:

1) A social networking site including mail and groups.
2) A collection of Diplomacy User Interfaces tied to a one adjudicator.
3) A few MUD-like games.
4) JavaScript-y enhancements throughout the site.
5) Administrative Agents - Those high-tech profiling tools.

The agents can be bumped to a higher priority if needed. The basic
premise is that there will be a difference in the communication between
an alliance grown in-game and one where most of the communication has
taken place off stage. There are lexical analysis tools capable of
building profiles to distinguish between the two. It is also possible
to factor in the scenario where conversation is staged.

> The "join the community" aspect seems to be the wave of the future,
> although as an old fart I must admit I find it both confusing and
> annoying.

I'm one of the biggest proponents of community out there now. I used to
want people to think of the entire hobby as a community and I viewed
clubs, especially those that recruited on the basis of specific quality
criteria, as a threat to the hobby because they removed players from
the general player pool, which in turn meant that newbie games were
even lower in quality than they would otherwise be thereby creating
artificial barriers to entry for the hobby. Now I see that as a good
thing - not that I want to discourage people from getting involved, but
I see "price of membership" to the community as an important part of
establishing value for membership. Value, specifically something that
can be lost, as a key ingredient in eliciting the behaviors that I want
in community. I would prefer to have people just behave decently
without the social engineering effort, but I don't see that happening.

> Ah yes, I suppose. And servers seem to be doing things VERY
> differently now. I notice this, but can't tell why.

If you're talking about email servers and services based on email, it's
because of Spam. Current anti-Spam measures are rule-based and very
unreliable. The next generation of mail service uses public keys to
establish identity and AI lexical analysis tools to identify Spam the
same way that people do. The best tool currently available for bulk
classification (ISP level) is DSPAM which is capable of ~97% accuracy.
On an individual level, the CRM114 Discriminator is capable of making
your inbox purer than Ivory Snow, 99.5% to 99.95% depending upon your
mail profile and the attention paid to training. There are a few tweaks
in the pipeline for CRM, but (in the absence of a new classifier) real
improvement is most likely to come by making training easier - mail
client plug-ins, for example.

Chris

Chris Babcock <cbabcock.TakeThisOut@kolonelpanic.org> writes:


>> >> >So what does the the "s" in "szine" stand for?
>> >>
>> >> It actually is about
>> >> pronunciation. Do a google search see what you find, I'd be
>> >> curious, I'll probably do it myself too. Basically it is social
>> >> networking.
>>
>> >I looked before asking. S for social makes sense in the religious
>> >sense that it doesn't have to be factual to be true. Most of the
>> >szines that I found in Google were snowboarding and other extreme
>> >sports so there are other plausible etymologies.
>>
>> Really, someone else came up with that? No, no, I guess you never
>> found any of the Diplomacy explanations, it purely was a SPECIFIC
>> diplomacy group signal about pronunciation of the word. There are
>> two possible pronunciations of the abbreviation "zine", szine as
>> opposed to zyn.... it ended up being a group ID.

>Sometime between then and now, I got that szine might be pronounced
>like "scene", which suddenly answered my question, "What to call 'it'?".

Yes and zine or xyn is pronounced more like "sign".

>> >Even when graphical interfaces like mappers are available,
>> >Diplomacy is still "text-based" as opposed to binary because that is
>> >how the game is conceptualized.
>>
>> Agreed.

>Wow. I don't usually get that one given to me that easily. When I tell
>someone that Diplomacy is text based, I get asked about the map and
>have to go through the whole deal of asking people what they are
>thinking when they look at the map. Unless someone exclusively plays no
>press on a GUI (or plays as-if it was no press) then they still think
>"Army Liverpool to Yorkshire" rather than arrow on a map.

Only people who don't know the game would argue this point. The game
wizards at Microprose NEVER got this. The game HAS to have verbal context
to it. It is NOT binary.

>> >The back-end will use Wiki markup for internal storage. The
>> >importance of this particular engine in terms of storing pages is
>> >that it uses a threaded view instead of a flat chronological view
>> >for history that could also be applied for discussions.
>>
>> That probably is useful for people trying to follow disparate
>> threads, like on Music or arts or politics.

>One of the few real differences between mailing lists and forums is
>that mailing lists are more likely to be threaded. The capability of
>having a threaded, as opposed to a linear, representation of the
>discussion is one of the keys to merging the two presentations.

I do understand this, though I don't practice it well.

>> Yes, although I really think geography is WAY overstated as a guard
>> against fraud. It is almost easier to get three friends together in
>> US, Australia, UK and put in an automatic alliance, rather than
>> create fake IDs.

>That is certainly becoming more and more of an issue. Multis still
>break games more than collusion. Orders from multis have to originate
>from the same geo-area *and pretend not to do so*, making that a good
>resource for prevention.

You would know, and I know you don't like discussing it in public, and
shouldn't, so we should stop there on that.

>Collusion can't be detected without either snooping or high-tech
>profiling tools. My objectives are currently ordered:

>1) A social networking site including mail and groups.
>2) A collection of Diplomacy User Interfaces tied to a one adjudicator.
>3) A few MUD-like games.
>4) JavaScript-y enhancements throughout the site.
>5) Administrative Agents - Those high-tech profiling tools.

>The agents can be bumped to a higher priority if needed. The basic
>premise is that there will be a difference in the communication between
>an alliance grown in-game and one where most of the communication has
>taken place off stage. There are lexical analysis tools capable of
>building profiles to distinguish between the two. It is also possible
>to factor in the scenario where conversation is staged.

I don't understand how all that would work, certainly technically, and
partly conceptually, but I fully will cheer you on in attempting it.
Wouldn't the Facebook group be the first place to test this, or am I
misunderstanding something? THey have all sorts of communication groups
on there, some of which I've joined but don't understand.

>> The "join the community" aspect seems to be the wave of the future,
>> although as an old fart I must admit I find it both confusing and
>> annoying.

>I'm one of the biggest proponents of community out there now. I used to
>want people to think of the entire hobby as a community and I viewed
>clubs, especially those that recruited on the basis of specific quality
>criteria, as a threat to the hobby because they removed players from
>the general player pool, which in turn meant that newbie games were
>even lower in quality than they would otherwise be thereby creating
>artificial barriers to entry for the hobby. Now I see that as a good
>thing - not that I want to discourage people from getting involved, but
>I see "price of membership" to the community as an important part of
>establishing value for membership. Value, specifically something that
>can be lost, as a key ingredient in eliciting the behaviors that I want
>in community. I would prefer to have people just behave decently
>without the social engineering effort, but I don't see that happening.

This is PRECISELY what szines did, you need szines to be connected to one
another, szine editors/leaders (though your concept may be inherently
leaderless) tend to want to belong to all the communities. This is how I
presently conduct myself in the hobby. I am at least weakly involved in
every community of any size that I know about. But you want szines to
evolve to meet needs, so the communities will be of differnt sizes.

>> Ah yes, I suppose. And servers seem to be doing things VERY
>> differently now. I notice this, but can't tell why.

>If you're talking about email servers and services based on email, it's
>because of Spam. Current anti-Spam measures are rule-based and very
>unreliable. The next generation of mail service uses public keys to
>establish identity and AI lexical analysis tools to identify Spam the
>same way that people do. The best tool currently available for bulk
>classification (ISP level) is DSPAM which is capable of ~97% accuracy.
>On an individual level, the CRM114 Discriminator is capable of making
>your inbox purer than Ivory Snow, 99.5% to 99.95% depending upon your
>mail profile and the attention paid to training. There are a few tweaks
>in the pipeline for CRM, but (in the absence of a new classifier) real
>improvement is most likely to come by making training easier - mail
>client plug-ins, for example.

>Chris

Yeah, users are waiting for that!!! Although I am one who is not THAT
bothered by Spam personally. Both Positive and Negative predictive power
are important (not enough recognized in my view) so I would prefer to have
a user defined setting that gets me more spam but minimizes me losing
messages I want.

Jim-Bob